Weathersbee: Robots won't take jobs, but they may hurt workers

FedEx chief Frederick W. Smith spoke about innovation and introduced a company robot during an appearance at the National Council on Undergraduate Research annual conference at University of Memphis Thursday.
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April 6, 2017 - FedEx Corp. chairman and chief executive officer Frederick W. Smith speaks to the National Council of Undergraduate Research at the Michael D. Rose Theatre Lecture Hall at the University of Memphis.(Photo: Brad Vest/The Commercial Appeal)Buy Photo

FedEx chief Fred Smith is right. Robots won’t be – at least not in a big way – pushing people out of jobs anytime soon.

But then again, that’s easy for him to say. He’s a CEO.

He’s not the long-distant truck driver whose job might ultimately go away when driverless vehicles are deployed on the nation’s interstates. He’s not the fast food counter clerk whose job might evaporate once thousands of people get the hang of punching in their orders at a kiosk.

Yet I don’t believe Smith’s words last week to a group of student researchers at the University of Memphis were meant to be comforting as much as they were meant to be realistic.

Realistic in the sense that automation and technology will continue to shift the job market beneath our feet. But as the job market continues to change, any talk about future jobs must expand beyond how many will exist to what kind will exist.

“There are several things that Fred is speaking to that are wise,” said Nat Irvin II, a futurist and the Woodrow M. Strickler Executive in Residence, Professor of Management Practice, College of Business at the University of Louisville.

“But here’s the way to think about this, and here’s why people are nervous. It may very well be that robots, or artificial intelligence, won’t take your job, but they may do something to your job that may make it less valuable than it was before…

“So it’s not just that jobs are disappearing. It’s that the jobs that people have traditionally had – jobs that pay decent wages and benefits – are disappearing. That’s what’s driving the angst – and that’s the conversation that we should be having.”

Irvin has a point.

For example, robots such as the one that Smith said are being used at FedEx — the customer-facing robot that takes repair orders and hands them over to the human clerk to fulfill — are great for customer convenience.

But if similar robots, or other forms of artificial intelligence, are used at other companies, and if they are used in other capacities, that could possibly create less work for the human workers. That could lead to people’s jobs being reconfigured as part-time, or their duties being downsized along with their pay and benefits.

“That’s the thing,” Irvin said. “Robots won’t take people’s jobs, but they can impact the relationship between companies and employees. Where people once had full time jobs, they could be placed in the capacity as a temp, or as a contractor.”

But there’s good news in those tea leaves as well, Irvin said.

Many companies are recognizing that the future of work is going in this direction, and they are developing ways to confront that reality; a reality in which skilled trades, such as welding and the like, are growing, as well as high-tech jobs, but middle-class jobs in industries such as banking and retail are being disrupted by technology.

“The mechanical jobs are doing well, and you still have the jobs at the top, but there’s a bias in the economy where the middle is being hollowed out,” Irvin said. “But a lot of companies are taking it upon themselves to retrain people, and to work with colleges and universities to help workers develop those specific skills that technology can’t replicate.”

But other transformations must occur as well.

As this technological disruption continues, it’s important to support campaigns such as Fight for 15 — a national movement that is pushing for a $15-an-hour minimum wage. It isn’t unreasonable to believe that this disruption could possibly push many people, even those who hold college degrees, into service jobs that don’t pay a living wage or benefits.

At the very least, such a wage could give those workers a chance to stabilize their lives and incomes so that they can get to the next rung and get the education that they need for a better job.

But most of all, this country needs to begin to reform and revamp education to teach adaptive, critical thinking skills, so that students can hold the higher-paying jobs that will come about through innovation, as opposed to waiting to see what will be left once the robots start to do part of what people used to do.

“Humans will be required to update their ‘employability software’ as often as they update the latest software update on their mobile phones or latest game,” Irvin said.

“There will be no exceptions, unless people decide to be obsolete or useless.”